Lobster pot tag washes up across the Atlantic 2 decades after Perfect Storm’

Pembroke lobster fisherman Richard Figueiredo lost hundreds of lobster traps in 1991 in what became known as the “Perfect Storm.” Twenty years later, a beachcomber in Ireland has found an ID tag from one of the pots. She wants to return it, but Figueiredo wants her to keep it.

By Lane Lambert

The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, MA

By Lane Lambert

Posted Dec. 2, 2011 at 12:01 AM
Updated Dec 2, 2011 at 2:07 AM

By Lane Lambert

Posted Dec. 2, 2011 at 12:01 AM
Updated Dec 2, 2011 at 2:07 AM

PEMBROKE

» Social News

When Richard Figueiredo lost a couple of hundred lobster pots to the wind and water of the 1991 “Perfect Storm,” the South Shore native and fourth-generation fisherman chalked it up to the cost of the trade. Other fishermen lost boats and gear too.

Twenty years later and 3,000 miles away, a reminder of the famous storm has turned up on an Irish beach – a weathered trap tag with Figueiredo’s name on it.

Figueiredo never imagined such a discovery was possible, until Rosemary Hill of Waterville in County Kerry contacted his son, Rich Figueiredo, on Facebook last week.

“The odds are phenomenal,” the elder Figueiredo said.

Nationally known oceanographer Curt Ebbesmeyer of Seattle said tags from lobster pots are often found on faraway shorelines. But he said the 20-year drift of Figueiredo’s is unusually long for such flotsam.

Ebbesmeyer studies flotsam and ocean currents, and is the founder of the Beachcombers’ and Oceanographers’ International Association. He said the pot and tag may have been buried in offshore mud before drifting south off the U.S. Atlantic coast and then getting caught the eastward Gulf Stream.

With or without the pot, the tag then likely drifted south again into the circular Subtropical Gyre current in the mid-Atlantic, making six three-year loops before it again caught the Gulf Stream toward Ireland – all told, perhaps 50,000 miles of drifting, Ebbesmeyer said.

He called it “a very well-traveled tag indeed.”

Hill, who is 39 and a lifelong beachcomber, said in a telephone interview that this is the first time she’s ever traced a buoy or other piece of maritime flotsam to its owner.

“It was such an off-chance thing,” she said of her Facebook contact.

Hill found the tag last year as she strolled a beach in Waterville, County Kerry, after a storm. She spied the orange tag amid clumps of seaweed, added it to a bowl of beach souvenirs, and forgot about it until last week.

“I looked at it again and thought, ‘Why not try to find the owner?’” she said. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”

It helped that Figueiredo is a distinctive name. She found Rich Figueiredo on Facebook and asked, “Is this you?”

“I was completely shocked,” the younger Figueiredo said.

He quickly confirmed that the tag was his father’s.

“That’s his permit number,” Figueiredo said of the “5642” after his father’s name.

In 1991, Richard Figueiredo was fishing from Cohasset, where his own father, William Figueiredo, ran a marina. After the storm, he recovered some traps that had been blown off drying ledges to the beach, and he pulled some “line pots” out of the mud. But the rest were in open water.

The trap bearing the tag that Hill found most likely drifted into the Gulf Stream current, which carried it across the mid-Atlantic in the direction of Ireland’s southwestern coast. Ebbesmeyer said the pot could have been buried for most of the past 20 years before the tag came free and began drifting.

Page 2 of 2 - Richard Figueiredo is impressed that the worn tag survived its long journey.

“You can see it’s been around,” he said.

He and Hill spoke for the first time Thursday. She offered to mail the tag back to him, but she says he wants her to keep it.

“The meaning it has over there is what matters,” Figueiredo said. “I am honored that she has put so much enthusiasm into this. What’s happening now is a gift to me.”